Plotinos: Complete Works, v. 1: In Chronological Order, Grouped in Four PeriodsPlotinus
Philosophy
Plotinos: Complete Works, v. 1: In Chronological Order, Grouped in Four Periods
Plotinus
Plotinus
If your soul does not succeed in enjoying this spectacle, if she does
not have the intuition of the divine light, if she remains cold and
does not, within herself, feel a rapture such as that of a lover who
sees the beloved object, and who rests within it, a rapture felt by him
who has seen the true light, and whose soul has been overwhelmed with
brilliance on approaching this light, then you have tried to rise to
the divinity without having freed yourself from the hindrances which
arrest your progress, and hinder your contemplation. You did not rise
alone, and you retained within yourself something that separated you
from Him; or rather, you were not yet unified. Though He be absent
from all beings, He is absent from none, so that He is present (to
all) without being present (to them). He is present only for those
who are able to receive Him, and who are prepared for Him, and who
are capable of harmonizing themselves with Him, to reach Him, and as
it were to touch Him by virtue of the conformity they have with Him,
and also by virtue of an innate power analogous to that which flows
from Him, when at last their souls find themselves in the state where
they were after having communicated with Him; then they can see Him
so far as his nature is visible. I repeat: if you have not yet risen
so far, the conclusion must be that you are still at a distance from
Him, either by the obstacles of which we spoke above, or by the lack
of such instruction as would have taught you the road to follow, and
which would have imbued you with faith in things divine. In any case,
you have no fault to find with any but yourself; for, to be alone, all
you need to do is to detach yourself from everything. Lack of faith in
arguments about it may be remedied by the following considerations.
HOW SUCH AS RISE AS FAR AS THE SOUL MAY ACHIEVE FAITH IN THE
INTELLIGIBLE.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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